The primary goal of this site is to provide mature, meaningful discussion about the Vancouver Canucks. However, we all need a break some time so this forum is basically for anything off-topic, off the wall, or to just get something off your chest! This forum is named after poster Creeper, who passed away in July of 2011 and was a long time member of the Canucks message board community.

In the rest of the world, nobody has contracts(for personal cell phones) and the providers bend over backwards for your money. Basically, it's all pay and talk as nobody would be so stupid to lock in for a term. Coincidentally, there generally isn't locked mobiles. You buy your toy outright and then if you prefer to try someone else you go buy a $2 sim card, swap it out and keep on rockin.Canada absolutely sucks for the cell phone consumer

Well I guess in Canada, it's all about monopolizing, protectionism and control. Big 3 Providers, ICBC, BC Liquor Board, Terasen Gas, BC Hydro, Canada Post, CN Rail, Canada Wheat blah, blah, blah but yeah, the whole provider system up here is a fucking joke. In the states, you buy a phone and then you have a pick of thousands of providers to choose from and it's non contractual.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

I ditched my Canadian plan years ago, now I have Verizon North America. Works just fine and no bulls**t Canadian plan

Nice! Do you need a US PO Box or how do you get around the address thing?I'm still rolling with my jailbroken iPhone 3 on Virgin prepaid. $35/mo all in, unlimited incoming calls, texts and I think 500 something bytes of data. When I'm in Europe or Oz I just snag a local sim card and roughly 20 Cdn dollars worth of credit. Easy. That's the best you'll find in Canada

Last phone I bought was purchased outright from Apple, unlocked from any particular carrier. I was totally happy with it and was able to turn it over within about a year, I'd definitely go that way again in the future.

Saving a couple hundred upfront on your device in exchange for a contract you'll want out of halfway through is silly (unless you've looked at how much it'll cost you to buy out a year or two of your deal).

Uncle dans leg wrote:In the rest of the world, nobody has contracts(for personal cell phones) and the providers bend over backwards for your money. Basically, it's all pay and talk as nobody would be so stupid to lock in for a term. Coincidentally, there generally isn't locked mobiles. You buy your toy outright and then if you prefer to try someone else you go buy a $2 sim card, swap it out and keep on rockin.Canada absolutely sucks for the cell phone consumer

Uhm... Not true. You see both here. Whereas I prefer to pay my phone upfront and have a contract that can be terminated at will, most idiots fall for the pied piper's pipe dream and "get their phone for free" by signing two, three or even four year deals that make them end up paying twice as much for the phone than they should have. There's no such thing as a free phone. There are people paying CAD 50-100 /month for their phone bills, whereas I usually end up paying roughly CAD 10. Thus after two years they have paid some CAD 1000-2000 for that phone. That's one expensive phone.

Uncle dans leg wrote:In the rest of the world, nobody has contracts(for personal cell phones) and the providers bend over backwards for your money. Basically, it's all pay and talk as nobody would be so stupid to lock in for a term. Coincidentally, there generally isn't locked mobiles. You buy your toy outright and then if you prefer to try someone else you go buy a $2 sim card, swap it out and keep on rockin.Canada absolutely sucks for the cell phone consumer

Uhm... Not true. You see both here. Whereas I prefer to pay my phone upfront and have a contract that can be terminated at will, most idiots fall for the pied piper's pipe dream and "get their phone for free" by signing two, three or even four year deals that make them end up paying twice as much for the phone than they should have. There's no such thing as a free phone. There are people paying CAD 50-100 /month for their phone bills, whereas I usually end up paying roughly CAD 10. Thus after two years they have paid some CAD 1000-2000 for that phone. That's one expensive phone.

All of my friends and my wifes' family in southern Sweden pay up front. Nobody seems to go that route...

In Australia I would spend $20 and they would give me 1gig of data, 400+ minutes of daytime talk, unlimited text including international and after 6/weekends free. Unreal compared to here. When we went to Sverige I bought a 100SEK sim card and never came close to burning it up. That included surfing, texting, etc but when we got to Germany it was toast in about 5 minutes Stupid Krauts

When you go into a store to buy a phone, they only advertise these deals that will have you locked up for two to three years. You have to ask them how much the phone is without any of those contracts.

They may be disappearing soon though, as there is discussion of passing a law that would allow any private person (it would not apply to companies) to terminate any phone plan with one months notice. If they pass that law, the con men will have to start thinking up new schemes to make fools part from their money...

I can tell you what, i hate i-, smart- or what do i know-phones and all these shit what comes around.Instead of talking to people around and building up some real social connections, everybody is busy with this evil thing most of the time.

I don't have it and i don't need a mobile internet connection. You know the times when nobody even had a mobile phone and it went without too. Damn modern society which's killing itself.